The Devil You Know
by Miah-Arthur
Summary: She hadn't known. When she saw the monster, she hadn't known.


**Notes:** Thanks to Obliobla for the prompt that led to this!

Thank you to my betas LostMindy and Matchstick_Dolly.

Whumptober prompt #14 Tear stained

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**The Devil You Know**

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She hadn't known.

She pressed harder against the holes in his chest, and a strangled gasp of pain escaped his perfect, angelic lips.

She hadn't known. When she saw the monster, she hadn't known.

_Lucifer ran ahead of her, his long legs carrying him too fast for her to keep up. She turned into the alley, saw a monster over a man in a dark suit, cowering on the ground, and she fired. Twice. Center mass. Just as she'd been trained. _

_The man—the murderer they'd been chasing—scrambled away, skittered off into the dark. And the monster turned to her, a look of surprise on its twisted features as it looked between her and the blood on its hand. _

_"Detective?" it said with Lucifer's voice as it collapsed to the ground. _

_She approached reluctantly. Her partner and the suspect were the only two people she'd seen run into the alley, and it was wearing…_

Tears spilled from her eyes, trailed down her face, dripped from her nose.

She hadn't known.

_The monster's eyes rolled up. It fell still, and the skin shifted. And it was Lucifer she'd shot. Lucifer with holes in his chest and blood draining from his body. Lucifer gasping for breath on the ground. Had she really seen red skin and glowing eyes? She dialed dispatch, screaming for an ambulance to be sent to their location. She used officer down, even though he was only a consultant. _

_He was one of theirs, and she'd killed him. _

His eyes were open. He looked at her with such confusion. "Why?" writ on his features. And she saw the moment he understood. His eyes, those beautiful brown eyes, filled with tears. He squeezed them shut, turned his face away from her. Stopped struggling so hard.

"Lucifer! Breathe! Please, please, Lucifer, keep breathing."

A tear dripped from the tip of her nose onto his cheek. He gasped, and the sound was terrible, wet and ragged, but at least he had taken another breath. But there was too much blood, and he wasn't breathing enough. How could he with so—

A whoosh of air behind her, arms like steel beams wrapping around her, and then a moment of blankness, and she knelt in the courtyard of her apartment, so far removed from the dingy alley. Blood to her elbows. Lucifer's blood.

She clambered to her feet, staggered inside. She had no idea how she got there. The tears wouldn't stop. She'd murdered Lucifer. She'd _murdered_ Lucifer. It pounded through her head. Unrelenting. Unending. She'd murdered Lucifer. His confusion. That uncertain, pained "Detective" before he fell. The moment he understood she had killed him.

She needed to…

Confess. She needed to confess.

She found herself sitting on the edge of the bathtub. Blood dried on her fingers. Thick. Caked. Cracking away from her skin. She shuddered and turned on the water and scrubbed and scrubbed until it was gone. And then she was in her living room, on her couch, staring at her clean hands, wishing there was some evidence remaining of her crime.

A whoosh of air rattled the back door. She stood, ready to face the SWAT team sent to arrest her.

The backdoor opened gently. Lucifer walked toward her. His clothes and skin and face covered with dried blood. Large bandages, soaked with blood, covered the wounds. His hair stood stiff with it. His shoulders hunched in from pain.

He wasn't real. She'd killed her partner while hallucinating that he was a monster, and her mind had snapped, and now she was seeing this ghastly reminder that she hadn't even picked up her phone to turn herself in.

She froze as it approached. The look on his—even if it wasn't really him, she couldn't bring herself to think of the apparition as an _it_, not while it wore Lucifer's face—the look on his face was sad, and, and fearful. Of course he was afraid: she'd killed him.

"Lucifer… I-I didn't know. I thought I saw—thought you were the one on the ground. I—" she couldn't continue. The sobs closed her throat.

He was close now. So close she could feel his presence. Warm and solid. Not cold like she'd expected.

"You saw a monster. The Devil. And you aimed to kill." His voice was choking, too, and she looked up. The creature she'd shot at stood before her, face contorted with grief, Lucifer's blood-soaked clothes wrapped around its body. The white edges of the bandages standing out in sharp contrast against the red skin of its chest.

She took a step back. "Lucifer?"

"Yes."

He didn't move a muscle. She had a sudden image of this, of him looking like he was standing here, in her kitchen, like a statue that only she could see as her life moved around him. She reached out, her hand hovering over the bandage, but unable to bridge the distance between them and make contact.

"I killed you."

"Not quite. Amenadiel was kind enough to move you away so I could begin to heal."

"Amenadiel?"

"My brother? Tall. brooding. Much less handsome than myself." He waved an arm behind him, and through the glass panes of the door, she saw Amenadiel standing in the distance, blood splashed across his white t-shirt. "Though not like this, I suppose." His skin rippled, and the pale skin, dark hair, brown eyes that she knew reappeared. "I am deeply sorry for this, Detective. Chloe. I never meant—" He took a deep breath, his chest expanding enough that her fingertips brushed the material of the gauze.

She jerked her hand away. He flinched and took a step back. She stared at her hand and then at his chest.

"I am sorry, Detective. I'll not trouble you further. I"—he sighed—"I will set my affairs in order and be on my way." His gaze scanned over her, as if trying to memorize her, and then he turned and nodded to Amenadiel.

She lunged at him, grabbing his elbow. Turning him back to her. Her hands roamed over his chest, his arms, his cheeks. He was warm. Breathing. Real.

"Y-you aren't a hallucination? I-I didn't kill you?"

"No. Very nearly, though. Rather inconvenient to try to explain to the hospital chaps when I got better."

"H-how are you alive?"

"I'm the Devil. Have I broken your mind? Detective, please—"

She cupped his cheek with her hand. "I shot you."

"Yes." He leaned into the touch, and closed his eyes. "I frightened you. Let you see in the worst possible way."

"You-you're not human. You're a-a-a creature. Should have killed you."

He blinked and lowered his head. "Yes." They stood silent for a long moment. He drew in a slow breath. "If you feel that you need to finish the job, I won't stop you. Though I do ask that you aim somewhere a tad more instantly fatal. Being shot in the chest bloody well hurts."

"You really are the Devil."

"Would it help if I looked the part?"

Chloe suddenly felt the weight of her gun in her hand. How long had she held it? Had she held it the entire time they spoke?

"I—" His voice broke, and he cleared his throat. "I can be frightening if you need cause. I could threaten you, so it's justifiable homicide. Please. Just-just do it now while I'm"—a muscle in his jaw jumped under her hand still on his cheek—"I'm ready."

His skin shifted back to red, and his eyes lit with flame. His features flashed, shifting, horrible, fear and hatred and every primal thing humans had ever shuddered at. He was the thing that hid under the bed and in closets. The cold shiver that ran up your spine when walking alone at night.

She yanked her hand away from his face. Stumbled back. Raised the gun, steady with both hands, aiming between his eyes. Her hands shook. He advanced a step and her finger tightened on the trigger. He stepped forward again, and her eyes dropped to his chest, her gibbering brain trying to preserve her sanity against the onslaught. The white of the bandage stood out against the red of his chest. She hadn't known. This creature, this _monster,_ was Lucifer. Would be Lucifer again if she shot him. She hadn't known before, but she knew now.

The sound of the gun thumping the floor broke the spell.

Lucifer stood before her, wearing his normal, human-looking skin. "Detective?" He took a step back, stumbled, and fell. "Why? I'm _evil_. You're good." She knelt beside him, a grotesque mimicry of their positions in the alley.

She didn't know if she was capable of using words now, so she turned his head toward her and kissed him. Gently brushing his lips. He froze again, his eyes wide, and words rushed back into her mind. "I shot you, I tried to kill you..." Fresh tears ran down her face.

He gasped, and fresh blood spotted the bandage on his chest. "You feel guilty? For me? No, not for me. Don't cry. You can't. Detective, you're good. Don't. Not for me. Not for—"

She pressed her fingers over his lips, quieting the desperate babble. "You're not evil, Lucifer. I didn't know. I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was you."

The back door crashed opened, splinters of wood ricocheting off the shelves near her head. Chloe startled, reacting far too slowly to this new threat. Amenadiel stood in the broken door frame, and the memory of him shouting and pounding on the door, slotted into the last minutes.

Lucifer wheezed drawing her attention back to him. Was he dying again? She ran her hands over him, assuring herself again that he was here. He was real. He was alive. "Please be okay. Please."

Amenadiel stalked over. "He needs to be away from you. I _told_ him he wasn't healed enough yet."

"What?"

Amenadiel's hand was heavy on her shoulder. "He can't heal near you, Chloe. I need to get him away."

Lucifer gripped her hand tightly. He choked, "Chloe—"

"I know you, now, Lucifer. We have a lot to talk about. Just-just don't die."

Amenadiel scooped him up, somehow making it look easy, as if Lucifer wasn't ridiculously tall and heavy. Lucifer squirmed, twisting in Amenadiel's arms, but Amenadiel never wavered. Lucifer still held her hand.

"I'll be okay, Lucifer. I'll come see you as soon as you're better. I'll be there. I love you."

Amenadiel shifted his grip and pulled Lucifer's hand away. "Talk to Linda, she can help you. " Amenadiel said. Chloe sat, staring at him, feeling lost. He gave her a hard look, and his tone softened. "I'll call her, 'll be okay,"


End file.
